On December 5, 1998 at 14:01 karl@denninger.net (Karl Denninger) wrote:
On Sat, Dec 05, 1998 at 02:38:57PM -0500, Barry Shein wrote:
One possible positive effect (for the consumer) of "per-bit" pricing is the opportunity to buy larger pipes but only pay for what you use.
The other possible effect is that you buy one of these, and then someone launches a DOS attack at you and you get the bill for it.
The economic impact of this should not be underestimated. Per-bitrate pricing is a problem as long as the receiver pays for the receipt of transmissions they may not have solicited.
Well, a paraphrase of the above is: We must engineer the net to keep the cost of criminal activities to a minimum so we can continue to avoid solving the underlying issue. That's not ridiculous, it may even be an unavoidable factor, but it's still somewhat sad. -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | bzs@world.std.com | http://www.world.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD The World | Public Access Internet | Since 1989 *oo*